Seven Years and Counting!

This year marks seven years that I’ve been providing tools that help coaches build successful coaching businesses. For me, it’s been a wonderful journey which has not only helped me get to know myself better but has also helped me meet lots of awesome coaches.

Through the coaches I have had the good fortune get to know at a more personal level, and through my own experiences as a coach, I have seen a common trend among us. And the trend is not a good one.

There is something that is preventing too many talented coaches from feeling complete and authentic in heart and soul. As a result, this is preventing them from being able to run successful coaching businesses on their own terms.

What is this thing?

Your beliefs. More specifically, your dis-empowering beliefs.

As a tribe of world changers, we can do better. We all need to be out there, ourselves fulfilled and successful (by our own definition), making this planet a better place!

For this reason, I have decided to write this article on the three most common dis-empowering beliefs that you must overcome to run a successful coaching business. I also provide some simple coaching exercises that I have found helpful with my clients in overcoming these three business demons.

It is my hope that if one or more of these old beliefs plague you, you’ll get to work on them TODAY!

Dis-empowering Belief #1: I’m not good enough

This is a biggie!

‘I’m not good enough’, commonly results in spending way too much time and money on coach training. It also helps you procrastinate on the business side of things like getting out there and getting paying customers. It also means that you waste tons of energy and brain power trying to prove yourself to others.

These are all delay tactics! So, if you suffer from this dis-empowering belief, chances are good that your coaching business just feels stuck.

You ARE good enough, right now. The only person you need to prove anything to is yourself. So, the sooner you start amassing the evidence you need to prove to yourself that you are indeed good enough right now, the sooner you will find success in your business and start moving forward.

Coaching Exercise 1.1 – Collect Evidence

Journal Exercise – Record all the things you are proud of in your past, present and dreamed future.

Coaching Exercise 1.2 – Defining Moment 1

Journal Exercise – Answer each of the following questions:

When did you decide that you were not good enough?

How old were you?

What happened, who was there, and what was said?

What did you tell yourself then?

What would you have wanted to happen?

What do you want to believe now?

What will you be giving up if you don’t create the change?

What is one thing you can do to reinforce the new belief on a daily basis?

Coaching Exercise 1.3 – Stop Training and Start Coaching

Stop doing coaching course after coaching course to get better and better. If you don’t USE the skills you’re learning with real clients, you loose them! Before you allow yourself to spend more money on coach training, achieve an important milestone in your business first, like launching your website or signing up your 10th client or 100th client. Unless you use the tools in your business within this year, more training is not a smart investment in your business.

Dis-empowering Belief #2: I don’t trust myself

Not trusting yourself results in constantly comparing yourself to others and a self-induced feeling of fear. It also means that you will never find your true calling as a coach, and even worse, you’ll never be able to fully serve your clients. You must know that there is no right way to build a coaching business. There are plenty of good ideas (like effective business models, marketing campaigns that get high conversions, great strategies to attract new clients, etc.) but these are just tools. Some will fit your personality and align with your core values and some won’t.

At the end of the day, YOU must choose to filter in the ideas that together will make your perfect coaching business. Only YOU know how to do that.

This means 1) you’ve got to start trusting yourself, and 2) you’ve got to be OK with getting it wrong. As a toddler, if you never allowed yourself to fall down, you’d never have learned to walk. Falling, then walking and then dancing are all essential parts of the learning process.

Coaching Exercise 2.1 – Un-plug!

Put on your blinders for a month, a year, 2 years, or 10 years. Un-subscribe! Tune out all media that makes you feel sick inside with envy, fear, or any other negative emotion. Tune in to things that remind you how strong and capable you are. Fill all the hours that you use to spend comparing yourself to others with time with your loved ones, and to listening to and following your heart. You will arrive where you are meant to be.

Coaching Exercise 2.2 – Manage Your Self-talk

Learn to identify and manage your ‘voice of fear’ and your ‘voice of inner strength’. Give them names, and faces. Get in touch with the feelings you get in your body when you allow one or the other to be in control. They are both you and both have a job to do but ultimately, you are the boss!

Coaching Exercise 2.3 – Daily Mantras

Repeat after me… Mantra 1 – I feel the fear and do it anyway! Mantra 2 – There is no failure, only feedback.

Coaching Exercise 2.4 – Create Vision

Get really clear on what type of life you want your business to give you. Write a paragraph about that life. Make it real – your unconscious mind will love the instructions and will start the process of manifesting it without you even realizing it’s happening.

Dis-empowering Belief #3: Childhood Money Beliefs

Depending on how you were raised, and your own childhood experiences with wealth, you will have you own unique set of beliefs around the possibilities/impossibilities about money. So, every coach should check this area in their life before they start their business.

The steps are simple. First, you need to discover what your money beliefs are. Then you need to decide if these beliefs are empowering or dis-empowering. Lastly, if you have any dis-empowering beliefs around money, you need to do everything you to replace the old dis-empowering beliefs with ones that will better serve, support, and nurture you, your clients, and your coaching business.

Remember, that using money as a measure of your own self worth and/or your value as a coach is just a recipe for trouble. You have to charge what your target market will pay. You also, have to charge what you need to be able to keep your dream business going! You have to know that you have value no matter what your coaching rates are now, or will be in the future.

Coaching Exercise 3.1 – Defining Moment 2

Journal Exercise – Answer each of the following questions:

When did you form your beliefs around money?

How old were you?

What happened, who was there, and what was said?

What did you tell yourself then?

What would you have wanted to happen?

What do you want to believe now?

What will you be giving up if you don’t create the change?

What is one thing you can do to reinforce the new belief on a daily basis?

The Next Level – Get Transformational Interventions

If you’ve done all the exercises above and still feel like there is more to shed, invest in some intervention type work. Some things just can’t be resolved by being rational and over-thinking.

Transformational intervention technologies help you tap into your unconscious mind and release the old beliefs in a semi-trance like state.

Try Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), EFT, Rosen Therapy, deep mediation, intensive yoga, etc. I believe that when you are truly ready to let go the transformational method doesn’t really matter! So, choose one that will enable you to relax into the process, trust the process and let go.

Benay creates expert tools and systems for coaches wanting to supercharge their business. She runs her business totally online while traveling the world with her family (husband, toddler and 2 dogs). She's been coaching professionally since 2006, has a Diploma in Life Coaching, is an NLP Practitioner and has an extensive background in business analysis and high-end, IT system development.

Wow!!! This is mind-blowing! I really do think that many of your articles can be applied to any of the areas in ones life, not just business. I love this. Especially parts 1 & 2. Part 3 I think I am okay in… Well at least Ihope so. 🙂 I have been reading a lot about NLP. I find it very interesting. Thanks again for the encouragement and great ideas!